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Jack Goldsmith to Discuss Limits of Executive Power and the Terror Presidency

Jack Goldsmith, author of The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Presidency and W&L alumnus, will deliver two lectures on Monday, Nov. 26. The first will be at 2:00 p.m. in the Millhiser Moot Court Room. It is titled "Are there Limits on Executive Power in an Age of Terror?" This talk is sponsored by the Lewis Law Center, the Transnational Law Institute, and the Department of Philosophy.

The second lecture, titled "Terror and the Presidency," is at 8 p.m. in Lee Chapel with a question and answer session following the lecture. There will be a reception in the Alumni House following the 8 p.m. talk. Both the 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. events are open to the public without charge.

A central player in the Bush Administration, Goldsmith is the former chief of the office of legal counsel, whose duty it is to advise the president on what he can and cannot do legally. The position has been described as "the most important job in Washington that you never heard of."

Jack Goldsmith describes himself as a "philosophical conservative," but he is troubled deeply by people doing things in violation of the United States Constitution, of treaty obligations of the United States and of laws enacted by Congress. He is cited by one commentator for his "unflinching insistence that we abide by the law," and is known widely as a brilliant lawyer.

Jack Goldsmith is the Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Law in the Harvard Law School. He is a 1984 graduate of Washington and Lee University with a summa cum laude degree in philosophy. He earned B.A. and M.A. degrees at Oxford and a J.D. degree at the Yale Law School. He also holds a diploma in private international law from the Hague Academy of International Law.